Few companies in the Nordics have the scale of tech that Spotify has. With over 600 million listeners in over 180 countries, Spotify is one of the Nordic region’s most global companies.
With global reach and between 3000 – 4000 engineers, there is a lot of wisdom and experience we can learn from how Spotify does with people, culture, processes and technology.
So, we met with Marcin Floryan, Director of Product and Engineering for Streaming Media experiences, to see what insights and lessons we can draw for our partnerships with more traditional industrial and service companies in the Nordics.
Here are 3 lessons you can reflect on for 2025:
A common development platform is crucial for high value creation
We see that many large industrial and service companies in the Nordic region are struggling to increase the productivity of their tech teams. Most often, they have let their tech teams make decisions about tools, hosting and frameworks, leaving them with a fragmented environment that is neither highly automated nor allows engineers to move between teams and products for scalability and flexibility.
Spotify saw this challenge many years ago and decided to build a common development platform with a high degree of automation and support, enabling developers to focus on solving the right problems and spend minimal time managing infrastructure. They chose not to force the developers to use the platform but instead build something so superior to what the teams themselves could build that they got the teams to voluntarily choose the common development platform.
AI in teams with humans is here to stay
Spotify has long experience of developing with AI, using AI and with its size, they are also one of the few companies that can really talk about the cost of AI and the disadvantages of AI on a larger scale (there are few companies that have +600 million users…)
Spotify has a long history of integrating AI into its work, both to optimize code and improve user experience. AI is used to augment developers rather than replace them.
Tools such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) are successfully used to analyze and optimize large code bases. However, these solutions are costly and best suited for organizations of significant size – smaller projects rarely achieve the same return on investment.
The real value of AI lies in its ability to streamline certain aspects of the development process. But it is also clear that AI cannot solve the biggest bottleneck: the ability to understand and prioritize the right problems. Identifying the real business value still requires human insight and collaboration.
Another key aspect is quality assurance (QA). AI can automate tests, but the results are often mechanical and lack the ability to understand intent, security requirements or organizational guidelines. As a result, this sometimes leads to more work, as developers have to write detailed prompts or manually review the test cases to ensure they align with objectives.
It is also worth reflecting on the high operational costs of AI. Marcin Floryan points out that in some cases it may still be more cost-effective to use traditional customer support centers than to scale up expensive AI infrastructure. Moreover, the issue of scalability raises concerns: it is one thing to run AI for a small number of users, but quite another challenge to support hundreds of millions.
Ultimately, Spotify sees AI as a powerful complement to human labor, but not as a panacea. By balancing human creativity and technological automation, organizations can maximize the value of both.
About culture and metrics
A strong and clear culture is the foundation of Spotify’s success. The company has managed to combine a decentralized structure with a culture where ideas trump hierarchies, and where decision-making is always as close to the problem as possible. As at Nvidia, the best solutions are rewarded regardless of who proposes them, creating a dynamic and creative work environment.
When it comes to metrics, Spotify is careful not to set too hard KPIs. Instead, it focuses on team performance rather than individual performance, allowing for collaboration and autonomy. They have access to extensive data that is openly available to employees, but data is used primarily as a support tool – not as a guide to detailed target tracking.
Marcin describes how Spotify’s low staff turnover has allowed it to maintain a culture of accountability and peer pressure. Instead of heavy management structures, Spotify has an environment where employees themselves help and push each other forward. Daniel Ek, founder and CEO, is an important part of this culture. Having been active at all levels of the company, he is able to both influence the product vision and lead the company through change.
This pragmatic approach is also reflected in their strategy and planning processes. Previously they used OKRs and quarterly planning, but today they work with a more flexible half-yearly format. Priorities are set by the leaders of the business and product teams, which strengthens the dialog and allows for quick adaptation.
Marcin believes that the most important ability of an organization is to be able to reshape itself based on the vision and the changes in the world. This readiness for change is built into Spotify’s DNA and is one of the factors that sets them apart from many others.
Closure
Spotify’s journey shows how tech companies can balance innovation with structured scalability, while maintaining a strong culture and flexibility.
For more traditional companies, there are many lessons to be learned – from the importance of creating a common development platform to using AI properly and building a culture of ideas and accountability. It’s not just about implementing new technologies or processes, but also about building an organization that can adapt to a changing world.
The lessons from Spotify are a reminder that success is not just about technical solutions or metrics – it’s about creating an environment where the right people can solve the right problems, together. And that, if anything, is a lesson that all organizations can draw inspiration from for the future.
